The Breaker of the Cycle
by Diablo Snowblind
Summary: Even demons have dreams. Even villains have motivations. Madara Uchiha's thoughts as he approaches the battle that determines the fate of the world.
1. The Beginning of the End

Awareness returned suddenly, as if a lighting switch controlling life and death, which had been turned off for Sage only knows how long, had been brutally forced back on despite the _wrongness_ of the act.

And yet the man could see only darkness before him.

"Where am I….?"

The man breathed in. Death. A smell he of all people was intimately familiar with. This tiny, confining chamber he stood in reeked of the smell of buried corpses and other unpleasant things that, once buried, were never meant to stay gone and never walk the land or see the sun again. For the man, a lover of freedom, this was anathema.

He hated this smell. He hated this chamber. What was Obito doing, having Nagato revive him in such a vile chamber? The least that Obito owed him was to personally greet him upon the climax of the promised day…the day marking the end of this corrupt and self-hating world. It was only then, in the immediate aftermath of the Juubi's revival, that the alternately divine and demonic beast would be weakened enough to be subjugated. Not even the Rinnegan alone could subdue and tame the father of the Bijuu at his full power. The Sage had made that clear in the final passages of the Uchiha Tablet, those passages that the Sage had meant to be read by the Uchiha-Senju mongrels who were meant to succeed him. A pity that that hadn't worked out. The man wondered…what would the Sage, who had failed in so many things, think about him? The Sage had meant for the children of the reconciled and united Senju and Uchiha to revive the Juubi and use its power to create a true heaven on earth.

A pity that that didn't work out, but if nothing else, the Sage was a failure in all things.

After waiting a few seconds for either Obito or Nagato to address him, the man impatiently raised his arm and let forth a great blast of chakra. The sight that greeted him was…unexpected.

"Where _am _I?"

The man was expecting to see Obito and Nagato standing before him, with the Juubi's empty shell _somewhere _in the vicinity. Yet neither his Uchiha sight or his chakra sensory abilities, boosted a hundred fold by his incorporation of Hashirama's power, could sense any of his legacy in the immediate vicinity. He could only see what appeared to be a fairly typical rocky desert of northern Wind Country, with a disheveled and bandaged man sprawled across the ground; the man had clearly been taken off guard by his chakra blast.

Flexing his stiff arms, the man was grateful to Nagato, presumably under Obito's orders, for not botching the resurrection. He could _feel _that his powers had been returned, and that his chimaera body and eyesight had been placed into his body as it had been at its height, just before his battle with the Shodaime Hokage.

"So it finally happened….it would appear that that little brat Nagato managed to grow."

The bandaged man got up onto his knees and stared in barefaced shock.

…"It can't be….this next summoning is…hahahaha, you must be…that they would even use you….whoever's behind these Edo Tensei summonings has a strong understanding of this war."

The words registered. This was not according to plan. The man looked at his hands, and seeing the cracks in the skin and the pale, waxy luster of his arms, he knew the truth. Sniffing, he realized that he _still _reeked of death and loam.

_Intolerable._

"Did you say Edo Tensei?!" Isn't that the technique known as a complete atrocity against the entire flow of life and death in the universe…?!

_'Obito, __what are you doing?' __Edo Tensei is sacrilege. Tobirama was a fool to create this black jutsu. Hashirama sacrificed his life to stop Tobirama from ending the world with this jutsu after his wife and children were murdered, and the Sarutobi brat had the technique sealed. Why did you revive me in such a state…..?'_

The bandaged man spoke. "Come, great one. We have a war to fight. I am….or was, the Nidaime Tsuchikage. The two men started walking to the east, from where the sound of far-off explosions could be heard. The man turned and stared at me in question. "We fought once before….if you still remember…?"

"I remember. You are Muu. Tell me, for how much longer did you survive after we fought….and what of your brat apprentice?"

"I didn't live long. Your actions at the Western Uchiha hideout caused the first Shinobi World War. A few months after the battle between us, the Nidaime Mizukage and I killed one other in a naval battle for control of the northwestern trade routes."

Madara scoffed. "A battle? Of your entire army, I only let you and your apprentice walk away alive, so that you could live to tell stories of my power."

Muu sighed. "Yes….that worked. You left Onoki and I on the verge of death. I lost many good, loyal friends that day, Uchiha. You, a single man, destroyed several regiments of our best shinobi all on your own, when we'd come in peace to discuss how the peace between our villages, after Hashirama gave us the Yonbi and Rokubi, should be structured. Hashirama came as close as any man since the Sage himself in achieving world peace. You murdered thousands of good men and women that day. Because we'd thought that you were still a part of the Leaf at the time, we blamed Hashirama…..that was the start of the curse of hatred between our two villages. All five of the Great Villages sent entire regiments of Hunter Nin after you once word got out…but no one could ever find a single piece of evidence about where you'd gone. Because the other four villages aside from Konoha thought that Hashirama was hiding you, we took revenge. You caused the first Great War, Madara….I assume that we've been summoned to fight in another Great War of the cycle that you caused. I see now how pointless it all is. How badly the world was misled by one man. …But, where _did _you go? No matter where you'd gone in the Elemental Nations, a hunter team should have eventually found you."

Idly glancing at the great sandstone pillars that defined the geology of the northern Wind Country, Madara smirked. The sounds of battle, once loud, were now fading down. They were getting close now. '_Our side must be losing…I'll have to fix that._'

"Once you see the techniques I use in this war, I think that you'll be able to figure it out. I went…travelling, after the battle at the Western Hideout."

Muu sighed. "Enough of your cocky bullshit, Uchiha. You've caused the world enough grief without adding me to the mix, especially now that we're both dead. You weren't in the Elemental Nations. You must have travelled into the Unknown Territories surrounding the elemental nations….the lands of the summoning animal tribes. What were you searching for….?"

Madara gave Muu a sharp glance. The battlefield was now only minutes away at their current leisurely pace. "There's no reason not to tell you. I went searching….for the ancestral lands of the Sage of Six Paths. After abandoning the village that the Senju and my traitor Uchiha _brothers _built, I aimed to become the greatest warrior in history, to rebuild the world in my own image and tear down Hashirama's village and everyone in it. I traveled, using the Uchiha Hawk summons, to the other side of the world…to the Great Crater. I fought and defeated the summon tribes guarding the Sage's home, and took from them the Sage's Six Tools and the three Imperial Treasures. The Kyuubi, whom the Cloud had previously and foolishly hunted down in the Western Wastes, was also at the Sage's home…..guarding the grave of his father, I suppose. Aided by the artifacts I'd stolen from the Sage's home at the edge of the Great Crater, I enslaved the fox and returned to the Elemental Nations, blasting my way through the bending nomads of the northern Barren Lands above Snow Country, the ninja of Snow Country, and the samurai/shinobi joint army of Lightning country, killing hundreds of thousands along with the Shodaime Raikage…and eventually faced Hashirama at the border of the Fire and Rice nations."

Muu quietly said "You're more evil than I ever could have imagined, Madara…it's no wonder that the Edo Tensei summoner saved you for last. What happened at the border?"

"I lost. Despite how powerful I'd become after looting the Sage's home and enslaving the greatest remnant of the Jyuubi, Hashirama had become even more powerful. Instead of seeking power by selfish methods like I did, he became a true Sage…..the greatest Sage that this world has ever seen aside from the Rikudou Sennin. He learned to speak with the spirits of the land itself and make them fight on his behalf….forces that had been sleeping ever since the sealing of the Jyuubi. Hashirama could regenerate any injury within seconds and raise pieces of entire continents to fight for him. Our battle formed the mountain ranges of Fang Country, flattened Rice Country, and dug out one of the greatest canyons in the world…the Valley of the End. I had to fake my own death to escape, and escaped as a mere cripple due to a burnt out chakra system because I'd channeled too much of the Kyuubi's chakra, but I took with me one of Hashirama's severed limbs…and swore vengeance."

The sounds of battle had gone entirely quiet now. Muu and Madara were close now.

"I retreated from the world…using my abilities, I could observe the entirety of the Elemental Nations. I could see how I'd ruined the world's chance for peace. I saw you and the Mizukage kill one another. I saw the First World War….the only war that the Jinchuuriki were unleashed in. It was much worse than the second and third wars. Hashirama died stopping his grief-enraged brother from using the most advanced form of Edo Tensei…opening the gates of the underworld. I saw how pointless my entire quest for revenge was. I saw that I'd laid the groundwork for the pointless death of millions. I saw that I'd given life to an entirely new and worse cycle of hatred, mere years after Hashirama had defeated the prior cycle by taming the Bijuu alongside me. I saw the woman who once loved me die in battle against the Stone by your apprentices' hands, her final words cursing my name."

"I see now how pointless it all was. I lived on, Muu. For decades. I aged into an old man….." Madara chuckled. "Who would have ever thought that _I _of all people would live to a ripe old age? I awakened new abilities, took on an apprentice, and laid the groundwork for creating true world peace….which, if my guesses are right, this war is the determinant of. My remains were utterly sealed. My minions should have impenetrably sealed them away in a preserved state for decades, until the climax of my plan….when my remains should have been unsealed by my apprentice and used to resurrect me. _No one else _would have been able to gain access to them. I personally saw to that. Therefore, my apprentice must have revived me….he will answer for reviving me in this cursed body."

_'Where is Nagato? Where are my eyes?'_

The battlefield was only a few hundred feet before them now.

Muu shook his head. "Madara, all I can understand right now is that you're responsible, in some form or another, for all four of the Shinobi World Wars. You've killed millions. You ruined the peace that Hashirama nearly achieved more than half a century ago….enough scheming. Isn't it time that you let the newer generations take over?"

Madara scoffed. "Hashirama's peace wouldn't have worked. He was only the latest of the countless 'peacemakers' who have sprouted up ever since the time of the Sage. They have all failed. Hashirama's peace would have eventually also failed, like all the other 'messiahs' who came before him. Even the Sage failed. We're human, Muu. Violence and hate come to us naturally as with no other creature. When I explored the Unknown Territories, do you know what I saw? That we humans are the only sentient species that kill one another. We are the true monsters of this world. To achieve peace, I must completely destroy the cycle of hatred….by destroying hate itself. That's what this war is for. To make humanity forget the instincts of hate, ambition, and revenge. That is the only way to achieve peace. That is the only way to save our race...from ourselves."

The battlefield was nearly in sight now.

Muu, eyes downcast, asked "Is it worth it? Is taking away our free will, the only thing that really distinguishes us from the rest of the world's creatures, worth achieving peace?"

Madara answered "I've come too far, sacrificed too much, to turn back now. I _must _believe that it's worth it, or else my entire life would have been pointless. History believes that I achieved nothing with my life except spreading darkness. Tomorrow's history, if I have any say in the matter, will no longer say such."

They had arrived. Madara looked down upon the battlefield, from the edge of the sandstone cliff he stood atop of. He could see hundreds of ninja before him, with thousands more in the background. It appeared to be an entire division of ninja. The ninja were clearly shocked to see Muu, but only a few could recognize the warrior in red armor. His activated Sharingan eyes took in all of the details. He saw shinobi wearing the attire of all five nations before him, even an extremely aged Onoki, standing next to a red haired Sand ninja and a blonde Konoha nin wearing orange and black. All three radiated power, but only Onoki seemed to realize how dire his situation had become, if his saucer-wide pupils were any reliable indicator.

Inwardly, Madara chuckled. Warts and liverspots and wrinkles aside, this expression looked _exactly _like the one that had been on the brat's face the last time they'd met. Some things never change.

_"Madara...?!"_

_And so it begins…._


	2. Annihilation

The Breaker of the Cycle – Chapter 2.

"Uchiha Madara?!"

_I didn't sign up for this…._

Distractedly, the unnamed Earth Chuunin of no particular skill stood back up and fixed his attention to Lord Onoki, his Kage. In his inattentive state, Onoki's words hadn't quite registered. Seeing the thunderstruck look on his leader's face, the Chuunin's stomach dropped. Seeing the direction of Onoki's gaze, the Chuunin shifted his eyes to the top of the cliff that the Earth Shadow was now focusing his full attention on.

….Muu was back.

_Well, there go the celebrations…after Naruto and Lord Onoki took down and sealed Muu, I guess we got too far ahead of ourselves. We'd just beaten the strongest Tsuchikage ever, and now he's back? How? And with another zombie to back him up?_

These were the Chuunin's thoughts, as the celebrations of the Fourth Division died down. After watching one of Naruto Uzumaki's _clones_ all but single-handedly pulverize the strongest Earth and Lightning Shadows to have ever lived, and as word filtered in from the long-range communications ninja that dozens of other Naruto clones were sweeping the enemy, by the thousands, from _every single battlefield at the same time_, the ninja of the Fourth Division had on the spot declared the war essentially won. Many shinobi had started victory dances, uncorked their "victory" sake bottles, kissed their significant others, or had simply sat down and let it all sink in. If the war was won, all thanks to Uzumaki Naruto, why not celebrate in honor of one of the newest and greatest heroes in the history of the elemental nations?

_In declaring victory, we got too far ahead of ourselves…but still, how much can two zombies do versus nearly ten thousand ninja, none of whom are lower than Chuunin?_

Then the Earth Chuunin noticed that Lord Onoki _wasn't _looking at Muu. In fact, glancing at the surrounding crowd, he noticed that _no one _was looking at Muu, and the Jounin and the older ninja in particular seemed to look just as shocked as the Earth Shadow. Everyone's attention was fixed on the powerful-looking man wearing red armor standing next to Muu, whose title in life had been "The Skulking Ghost" for his unparalleled skill in infiltration and sheer destruction, thanks to his undetectable chakra network and Dust Release bloodline selection – an incredibly rare form of advanced, _tri-_element, Kekkai Genkai – where most bloodline limits combine two elements, the rare and legendary Kekkai Totai combine three.

_What is going on here…._

The Chuunin, mentally drowning out the discussion that was now spreading throughout the Fourth Division, formed the Ram focusing seal and performed an E-rank ninjutsu taught to all Earth Country tracking ninja. Focusing chakra to his eyes, his vision zoomed in on the ninja wearing antiquated red armor, currently standing a few hundred feet away atop a sandstone cliff.

Now that the armored warrior's features were clear, the Chuunin realized 'I know of this man. I've seen this face before…but where?'….then it came to him.

_The Valley of the End…and maybe a book from the Academy. That's where I've seen him before. That's Uchiha Madara! _

The Chuunin began to fear. Madara's history with the Earth Country was long and soaked in blood. If anyone could take on an entire army _alone_, it would be him. The Chuunin began to call up what he knew of Madara…the man's history was taught to all Iwa Academy students as _the _case in point of the dark power and black heart of Konoha in general and the Uchiha in particular. The Chuunin could instantly recognize Madara's face because he'd seen it before in effigy at the Final Valley. His tracking team had recently taken part in the clean-up operations in Rice Country as the low-grade, but unusually brutal, civil war there had died down. Uchiha Sasuke's slaying of Orochimaru, and the subsequent collapse of Orochimaru's Otogakure had unleashed thousands of corrupted aberrations, such as curse seal freaks, chimaera summoning creatures, and people with implanted bloodlines throughout Rice and the bordering minor nations. The resulting death toll was unknown, but probably verged into the tens of thousands. The assassination of Orochimaru's thrall, the daimyo of Rice Country, within days of the Sannin's death and the final collapse of her administration weeks afterward had ended whatever remaining semblance of self-government that the formerly ambitious minor nation had had. After Kabuto's disappearance, Orochimaru's surviving lieutenants took advantage of the vacuum and began to fight it out amongst one another for power, ending the unified front that the hundreds of missing-nin who had flocked to Orochimaru's cause had previously had, ending their protection from the hunter squads of the Elemental Nations. Those who didn't flee to Ame or other minor nations friendly to missing-nin were dealt with by the forces that Earth, Lightning, and Fire had sent in to Rice. All three nations were interested in claiming for themselves potentially useful data, experimental results, and malleable children who had survived Orochimaru's bloodline-grafting experiments, because whatever else he was, Orochimaru was respected throughout the Elemental Nations for his power and scientific prowess. The man's reputation, and bounty, had achieved hitherto unknown heights among missing-nin after his victory against the Sandaime Hokage in single combat. Konoha's presence in post-Orochimaru Oto, however, was dulled due to their problems with Akatsuki and their S-rank missing-nin, Uchiha Sasuke, despite the Fire County's geographic proximity – therefore most of the treasures of Oto had gone to Kumo and Iwa. Otogakure had gained great power in little over a decade due to the support of Kumo and Iwa, who were interested in backing a new client state that could stand between them and the Konoha superpower, weakening Konoha's position in other more strategic areas. The scientific work that Orochimaru had done for Iwa and Kumo especially, first as an Akatsuki member and then later, as his wealth and connections solidified, as a free contractor had gone a long way towards strengthening the Sannin's position as the shadow leader of Rice Country. Ever since the third Ninja World War, both nations had stolen dozens of bloodlines from minor nations (the Hyuuga Incident twelve years ago had warned of all of the Great Nations from stealing bloodlines from one another, Mist being the only exception due to Yagura's civil war, implying that, as always, the minor nations were considered fair game). Orochimaru's research was invaluable to Iwa and Kumo in determining the nature and potential of newly acquired bloodlines…his usefulness in these matters was sufficient for the two nations to work with the dark Sannin despite Konoha's suspicions – if these arrangements had ever become public, they could have resulted in war. As far as the Chuunin knew, Konoha had never found out, and hopefully never would.

Lord Onoki had sent the Chuunin's tracking team to back up several dozen teams – nearly a full battalion of three hundred ninja – into western Rice Country to retrieve potentially valuable assets and bloodlines and to seize control of the fertile floodplains while Konoha was distracted by Akatsuki. The Iwa House of Lords, an assembly of the noble, feudal clans of Iwagakure - which Onoki, as Tsuchikage and leader of the ancient Ryotenbin Clan, was guaranteed leadership of - had been musing the possibility of incorporating the breadbasket into Fang Country, a client state of Iwa. The Chuunin's team had been posted to watch the border at the Valley of the End while other teams cleaned up in the interior towns. There, they had sat long into the night, discussing in awe the scale of Madara's one-manned, map-altering invasion of the Elemental Nations some seventy years ago, which had culminated in digging out this kilometers-long and hundreds of meters deep canyon. The team noticed that some relatively recent and vicious battle had taken place in the Valley, judging from severe damage to the ground at the base of the statues and some of the obsidian cliff walls, which had once been solid granite but were utterly melted by the battle between Madara and the Shodaime Hokage.

One of the Chuunin's teammates, late in the night, had waxed poetic as he was sometimes inclined to do. He compared the Final Valley to the legendary Great Crater on the other side of the world, far beyond the Elemental Nations…two great and dark scars in the earth inflicted by men resembling gods, yet at opposing ends of the spectrum of morality. As far as the Chuunin's team was concerned, Madara was a dark god, incarnate in human flesh – for who but a god could wield power on such massive scale? Even Lord Onoki, Iwa's most powerful ninja since the Skulking Ghost, was known to have lost to Madara alongside Lord Muu himself in the battle of the Western Uchiha Fortress. That Onoki, still the apprentice of the Shodaime Tsuchikage, had survived such a battle as a youth at least partly explained his rapid rise through the ranks in the aftermath, especially given the deaths of many of his superiors due to Madara in the battle that was still known as Konoha's First Betrayal. Madara had singlehandedly killed hundreds of Iwa's best at what was supposed to be a peace congregation, using a nearly invincible ethereal creature that cloaked his body, and apparently unstoppable _black _fire techniques. Iwa had never accepted Hashirama's protestations of innocence in Madara's slaughter, even after the newly formed Leaf Village disavowed its co-founder and futilely sent trackers after him. The wounds that Madara had dealt that day to the former friendship between the two villages had, under Onoki's leadership, never healed – Onoki had lost many friends and comrades that day. The Chuunin could tell, though, that this Fourth Ninja War was changing things – he hadn't ever seen the stubborn old goat this happy and willing to work with his nation's former enemies. The Chuunin could tell that the Hidden Villages, forced for the first time ever to co-operate against a greater threat, now recognized that they weren't so different from one another. The Chuunin hoped that, after the war, this understanding would continue to grow.

Finally brought out of his musings, he heard the tail end of Onoki's response to the information that the Kazekage's beautiful sister offered regarding Madara's latest known location.

"Then who in the world is the man behind the mask?!"

The Chuunin didn't have a clue, nor did he care. Whoever it was who had declared war on the Elemental Nations at the Gokage summit after capturing seven of the Bijuu wasn't at this battlefield – something to be grateful for. Madara alone….his power was the stuff of legend. Even with a Naruto clone and two Kage, scores of A-rank ninja and thousands of lower ranked Chuunin, Jounin, and support staff, this wasn't going to be an easy battle, for Uchiha Madara hadn't been seen in the flesh since the battle of the Valley of the End nearly seventy years ago, making Madara nearly a hundred and ten years old. In those decades Madara had become to Iwagakure and the entire Earth Nation the symbol of Konoha's hidden evil – this task in no small part aided by Iwa propaganda, which had climaxed in its vitriol after the Yellow Flash singlehandedly slaughtered hundreds of Iwa's newest generation in a battle that would have otherwise made it to the very walls of Konoha. Madara was infamous even before the Founding for leading the nomadic Uchiha and its vassal clans to victory after victory throughout the lands that would eventually be domiciled as the northern Elemental Nations, with the Uchiha's Senju rivals tending to dominate the Southern lands and the island nations, thanks to the Senju's alliance with the Uzumaki. Thanks to the Uchiha's proximity, Earth Nation shinobi and samurai were well acquainted with the skill of Sharingan wielders and the overwhelming power of the few very Uchiha who mastered the Mangekyo. After the Betrayal at the Western Uchiha Fortress, Madara had completely disappeared from the Elemental Nations for several years before returning with several times his original power, in control of the Kyuubi and several legendary artifacts. His rampage in the Northern territories had claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and done desperate damage to Kumogakure, killing its Shodaime – a close and personal friend of Hashirama's, which paved the way for Kumo's own aggression against Konoha.

Through his musings, the Chuunin had kept his attention fixed on the two zombies, along with the rest of the steadily mobilizing Fourth Division. The zombies seemed to have come to an end of their discussion atop the cliff, if Madara's leaping down from the cliff was any indicator. The Chuunin heard Naruto's redundant "He's coming!" and the Kazekage's worried "it won't be easy to capture him…"

The hundreds of yells emanating from the Fourth Division were all overshadowed by Lord Onoki roaring like the old goat he was. "DON'T LOOK AT HIS EYES DIRECTLY!"

_Ow! My ears…_

It was taught in the Academy that pouring more chakra into Fire jutsu could have either one of two effects, depending on the user's will. Greater size or greater heat. Madara's opening jutsu was remarkable – The Chuunin saw him unleash a yellow-white wall of flame hundreds of feet across and scores talls, barely countered by a co-operative wall of water created by about sixty the Division's Jounin water-masters, who had earlier been ordered to take point in anticipation of battling an Uchiha ninjutsu master.

Then the Chuunin realized that Madara had anticipated this. The two elemental walls canceled one another out, creating an immense wall of steam. The surviving momentum of the wind created by Madara's jutsu kicked up the steam and scalded dozens of shinobi who hadn't reacted quickly enough. Their screams and the cover of the steam masked Madara's true entry into battle. The Chuunin, standing guard next to Onoki, didn't see so much as barely notice Madara leap through the steam – undoubtedly using some kind of invisible chakra shield to protect his skin – and crush the ribs of a katana-wielding Cloud jounin with a flying kick. Madara may have used a light Shunsin – his speed made his entry into battle all but invisible to any aside from jounin.

_Shit…..Madara was said to be perhaps the greatest blademaster in the history of the Uchiha, aside from Izuna…no wonder he went for that Cloud blade-wielder first._

Madara seized the blade and began cutting a bloody swath through the Fourth Division. His speed and mastery of fire to the point that he could use basic fire releases without using hand signs resulted in something the Chuunin had never even heard of before. Madara was literally leaving behind meters-high whirlwinds of fire as he slaughtered one congregation of ninja after another, breaking up the crowd surrounding him who, between the spreading fire, Madara's speed and uniform lethality, and the countless flying ninja weapons, flying or falling corpses, and water ninjutsu to counter the fire whirlwinds started to panic. Dozens began to flee, further adding to the confusion.

The Chuunin saw one of his old friends from the Stone, a senior Jounin known for using a sharpened slab of iron weighing hundreds of pounds, charge Madara and prepare an over-head slash. Madara just _looked _at the massive Jounin, who had never before faced an Uchiha in battle and didn't pay enough attention to Onoki's warning regarding the eyes of the Uchiha. The massive jounin just _stopped_, as though the strength of his mind and body had perished on the spot in a millisecond. Madara whirled and roundhouse kicked the poor man into the crowd – the Chuunin, anguished, saw that his friend just kept on flying for dozens of feet, knocking over a score of other Shinobi like bowling pins. His friend didn't get back up.

_Damnit! Madara is playing us for fools! He's fought against superior numbers for his entire life! His tactics are specifically meant to break up crowds and turn our numbers against us! We're losing nearly as many men to friendly fire as Madara is killing!_

The Chuunin had at this point forgotten about Muu. Onoki roared out a warning to the sensor-nin about Muu, who was still standing on top of the cliff – Muu had apparently tried to use Dust Release but failed. The Chuunin glanced at Muu and figured that the Skulking Ghost had ran out of chakra and returned his attention to Madara while standing guard next to Onoki, who at this point decided to step into the battle, moments after Naruto's clone yelled out that he was done gathering natural chakra and was ready to join the fight.

Onoki stepped away from his Chuunin guard and used a basic Earth technique taught to all Iwa ninja in the Academy, Chidoukaku, the very jutsu typically used to create walls and buildings, not normally used in battle. Regardless, the Chuunin wasn't surprised about this. Onoki was, alongside the Sandaime Hokage, legendary for using academy-level jutsu in even extremely high level battles. Onoki's jutsu raised a geometric, apartment-sized block of rock that Madara was standing on while Naruto leaped in from above. The combined speed of the two attacks was so swift that the Chuunin could only barely see Naruto's attack connect with Madara. He did see Naruto's immense ball of chakra grind through the upper half of Onoki's block of rock.

_No one could survive that….Naruto just turned dozens of tons of rock into dust….Naruto's speed while using his Sage techniques is incredible. Was Jiraiya also capable of this? He visited Iwa a few times to speak with Lord Onoki, but I never personally saw him do much but prey on our women…_

The wind and dust unleashed by Naruto's Rasengan obscured the Chuunin's vision, the flying shrapnel forcing him to cover his face with his crossed arms. The next thing he saw was several Naruto clones sent flying by an ethereal, two-faced, dual blade-wielding creature with four arms that cloaked Madara's body.

_That thing must be acting as a shield,…the Rasengan is a jutsu legendary for being able to pierce any defense. Just what is that thing?! Is that the technique that Madara used at the Battle of the Western Uchiha Fortress?_

Onoki then spoke up. "Susanoo! Did Madara already switch to the Mangekyo Sharingan?"

The Chuunin thought 'Susanoo…? The legendary technique used by the most powerful of the main branch Uchiha…?'

Onoki saw his guard's questioning look. "Yes, I've seen this before. This is the very technique that Madara used at the Western Uchiha Fortress." Shifting his gaze back to Madara, Onoki narrowed his eyes. "It's as terrifying now as it was back then. Keep your distance…those swords cannot be blocked. Trust me, I know."

The battle shifted after Madara unleashed this fearsome creature. By now the Fourth Division had dealt with the fire whirlwinds, recovered the wounded, and had their sensor-types working on reviving ninja who had been paralyzed by the Uchiha's genjutsu. Now that Madara's crowd-controlling tactics were neutralized by the Uchiha's shift to a more stationary type of battle, the Fourth Division was able to restore its lines and chain of command. Dozens of Jounin Commanders yelled out to their ninja to surround Madara and begin unleashing fire at will. The Shinobi Army complied enthusiastically. Thousands of elemental ninjutsu, kunai, shuriken, and bombs flew at the shadowy creature wreathing Madara, no longer visible to the naked eye. The Army stayed out of the range of the creature's massive swords, learning from the few dozen foolish ninja who had initially charged the creature and been sliced to pieces.

"Nothing is working. Just what is that thing?!"

Onoki again answered his Chuunin guard, speaking up for the dozens of ninja surrounding him. "The Susanoo is the most powerful Yin release ninjutsu in the world that we know of." The Tsuchikage added suspiciously. "Who knows what other secrets the Uchiha have…I've never faced any two Uchiha whose eyes behaved in exactly the same way. That clan is if nothing else full of surprises. Susanoo is said to be the Uchiha's very soul given physical form. It is both blade and shield. The Uchiha can use it to cast hand signs and even cast ninjutsu. It is a nearly unbeatable shield, and its attacks cannot be blocked. Only high S-rank ninjutsu and unusually powerful Kekkai Genkai can pierce it, and even then…not easily. My Dust Release will probably work. Naruto!" Onoki spoke up to the clone, who had apparently finished replenishing his chakra using senjutsu." Your Wind Rasengan….whatever you call it. Prepare to use it. I've got an idea…."

Naruto's clone nodded. The Chuunin saw Onoki walk over to the Kazekage, who had been busy shielding Division ninja with his sand from Madara's physical attacks while still using the stolen Cloud katana. Gaara's sand-shields didn't seem to work against the blades of Madara's creature….those soul-blades slipped through the sand as though it wasn't even there. The Kazekage gave Lord Onoki a questioning look. Onoki responded "settle down, brat. You're going to like this."

The Chuunin saw his lord create a few hand signs that were well known to the Jounin. "Doton Keijuugan no Jutsu!"

_That's what Onoki is planning…! Genius! He's going to make the Kazekage's sand faster, letting him take advantage of Susanoo's blind spot near Madara's feet. That spirit creature doesn't seem to protect Madara from underneath the ground!_

Naruto also seemed to realize the implications of Onoki's technique, after the Kazekage mumbled in wonder about how light his sand had become. Naruto fixed the Kazekage with a respectful gaze and nodded. "Thanks, old geezer!"

Naruto then looked at Gaara and said "Let's go!" The clone then used Kage Bunshin, creating two clones that helped the original create another of the Shuriken-shaped jutsu that Naruto had attempted to use on the Sandaime Raikage half an hour ago.

_Wait….a kage bunshin can itself use kage bunshin…? Is there no limit to how powerful that jutsu is?! Why did Lord Onoki never recruit a Konoha-ninja capable of using it? We could – AGH._

The Chuunin had forgotten how powerful Naruto's wind jutsu was. It sucked up air from the surrounding atmosphere like a vacuum, to the point that the Chuunin's ears popped and his clothes, for an instant, felt like they were in danger of being ripped off. The sheer pressure of the chakra almost blinded his undeveloped chakra-detecting senses.

_This 'Rasenshuriken' must look like a second sun to the sensor-ninja. Kami, what an incredibly dangerous technique…_

The Kazekage acted. The Chuunin saw the young kage take advantage of Onoki's jutsu and send his lightweight sand underground in the direction of the hundred-foot-in-diameter, corpse, metal, and crater-laden circular clearing that had developed around Madara in the past minute. The Fourth Division had sent tens of thousands of techniques at Madara's apparently invincible living shield, all to no effect. By this point the division had mostly given up on attacking it in favor of warily watching the creature's blades. The ninja present figured that, if Madara could extend those blades or use ninjutsu from within it, he was going to do it soon, since no shinobi were by this point foolish enough to charge the creature directly. The disarticulated corpses of those who _were_ foolish enough now littered the clearing around Madara in the dozens.

The Chuunin saw Naruto charge in while at the same time he could vaguely make out Gaara's sand sprouting up from right underneath Susanoo, catching Madara off guard.

_It's a pity that I couldn't create spikes to attack Madara from underneath, but manipulating rock at that kind of a distance is exceptionally difficult. Our techniques are meant to be used at close range to the source rock. I'd be surprised if even Onoki could do it….but there's no way that Madara is going to survive what Naruto and Gaara are about to do to him. The Rasenshuriken won't miss this time once Gaara takes him out from Susanoo, and I doubt that Madara has a shielding technique like the Raikage had._

Naruto and Gaara's tag team worked! They had managed to separate Madara from Susanoo. The Chuunin saw Naruto, still in Sage Mode, _throw_ the technique outright this time at Madara, who was now helpless in midair. The technique hit Madara and expanded, blinding Madara from the Chuunin's vision.

_We got him! …wait, why isn't it exploding like it did against the Raikage….is the technique failing?_

The orb of light surrounding Madara started to die down, and seconds later it disappeared. Naruto jumped back to Gaara's side, and started panicking. It looked like he'd seen a ghost. "Why?! Why does he have a Rinnegan?"

The Chuunin quickly looked at Madara's eyes, despite Onoki's earlier warning. The rest of the Shinobi army with a clear line of sight did the same, focusing chakra to their eyes so that they could zoom in.

_Shit. The Akatsuki member who singlehandedly destroyed Konoha was said to have a Dojutsu characterized by silvery-purple rings going all the way out to the edges of the sclera. It's said to be the Dojutsu of the Sage of Six Paths. The Akatsuki member was apparently capable of powerful, multiple Boss-level summonings, human summoning, manipulating every element, gravity, life and death…and Madara also has it? What the fuck? How?_

Fearful discussions started to break out throughout the Fourth Division. By this point, Naruto's battle a few months ago with the Akatsuki member "Pain" had become legendary throughout the Elemental Nations. Konoha had been reduced to a crater thousands of feet deep and _miles _across, and a second, equally sized crater a few miles away from the city had also been found in the aftermath. Pain had apparently created a small moon using an outrageously powerful gravity-controlling ninjutsu, resulting in the second crater, while trying to capture Naruto. Naruto had by this point been gaining a reputation throughout the elemental nations for defeating Gaara a few years ago, restoring the regimes of Wave and the former Snow countries, and defeating several A and S-rank ninja. His name wasn't exactly household knowledge anywhere but Konoha and the nations that he'd had missions in, but he was well known to shinobi who made it their business to watch out for potential A and S-rank ninja. His defeat of Pain, public knowledge of his mastery of Senjutsu, and the public knowledge that he was the jinchururiki of the Kyuubi, which had been said to have been killed by the Yondaime, sealed the deal. Ninja throughout the world put him into their bingo books as a confirmed, but not-yet-official, S-rank ninja, regardless of the ludicrous fact that he was still technically a genin. He became a household name as "Naruto of Miracles" after he'd apparently convinced Pain to sacrifice his own life to revive the tens of thousands of ninja and civilians he'd killed hours beforehand in Konoha. The Chuunin wasn't sure what to think about that, since people just didn't come back from the dead, ever. Hundreds of monks, samurai, and ninja in the history books had tried but failed to restore the dead. The failed attempts at doing so had tended to be extremely dark, to the point that every nation in the world had extremely harsh punishments for those attempting to restore the dead…the punishments usually involving instant, on the spot execution. No one in history had _ever _succeeded in restoring the dead, which was why Edo Tensei was panicking the civilians who were involved in the war effort and kept near the front lines. If that technique was possible, then surely the aftermath of the war would see thousands of attempts to replicate the jutsu….especially given the grief of all those who'd lost loved ones in this war. The fallout, the Chuunin and his friends in the hunter-corps agreed, could wind up being very nasty. Regardless, the Chuunin couldn't deny what had happened in Konoha….Onoki's announcement to Iwa to prepare for the Fourth Shinobi World War after he'd returned from the Hokage Summit had included an announcement to the public of the details of the battle against Pain that hadn't already been printed in newspapers, including a confirmation of the mass resurrection. Apparently the Copy Ninja had told Onoki that he personally had been revived, and Tsunade, the greatest medic in the world, had told the assembled Kage that the people of Konoha had really and truly been restored with no ill effects. And if the matter hadn't been confirmed by then, it was par for the course to members of the Shinobi Divisions to ask their Konoha comrades about what had _really _happened in Konoha on that day. Everyone agreed. Tens of thousands of people had apparently, actually, been truly restored from the dead on that day with no ill effects…..even those whose bodies had been utterly crushed by Pain's jutsu or who hadn't been directly killed by Pain or his jutsu. There were stories that an old civilian woman who'd died in the hospital of natural causes just before the attack had also been revived, the cancer that had caused the death removed from her body.

The Chuunin, considering all of this, realized that he didn't have a clue what Madara was really capable of if he had the Rinnegan. Even after the battle of Konoha, details of the eye's exact powers were still so vague. All that was truly known was that their power was worthy of the legend of the Sage of Six Paths. Looking around after his musings, he saw that the rest of the Shinobi Army was also discussing the Rinnegan's powers, a crowd of hundreds having assembled around Naruto asking him directly. The heroic prodigy of a brat somehow managed to look nervous when being surrounded by so many people, even while in Sage Mode.

Hundreds of other ninja, who kept their head in the battle, were watching Madara and Muu. The Chuunin noted that the beautiful Temari, the Kazekage's older sister, seemed to be particularly enthusiastic in asking Naruto questions.

_Kami, she is so out of my league…_

Madara, after defeating Naruto's Rasenshuriken, had in an immense and single leap returned to his original position atop the sandstone cliff and began talking again with Muu. The Chuunin desperately wished he could know what they were saying, but he figured that no one in the army would ever know.

And then, every ninja present stopped moving and looked back at Madara. The questions for Naruto stopped. Everyone could see that Madara, still on top of the cliff, had stopped his discussion with Muu and started releasing a gargantuan amount of chakra. The ethereal creature returned, without its swords, and formed two hand seals using its four arms, complementing Madara's own seals. The Chuunin couldn't see Madara's hands from this distance even when focusing chakra to his eyes, thanks to Madara's semi-transparent creature obscuring his vision. However, even he, without particularly developed chakra sensory abilities, could see that Madara was releasing many times the power that Naruto had put into the Rasenshuriken. If the Chuunin had been standing next to Madara, he realized that his heart would have probably stopped.

_What kind of ridiculous jutsu is Madara about to use on us…._

Then, shadow. The entire battlefield, which had been brightly exposed to the sun despite the light cloud cover, was wreathed in shadow.

_What is going on…?!_

Looking up, the Chuunin would later think that his heart really had stopped.

"What is this?!"

There was a meteorite in the sky. Kilometers across. It wasn't coming at anything close to the speed typically seen in star showers, but the Chuunin could see that the immense chunk of rocky metal, still silvery towards the edges, had a yellow-hot descending front due to atmospheric friction.

_It's bigger than the clouds….there is no way that this was created using ninjutsu. How in the hell is Madara doing this? Controlling gravity? Was this thing orbiting our world this entire time? How can any man do this? I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE. It's not coming THAT quickly. There's still time! A few seconds to get on top of one of the cliffs and use a Shunsin!_

The Chuunin, who had still been standing guard next to Lord Onoki, started running like his life depended on it. If anyone dared accuse him of cowardice, he would deal with it later. Looking back while running, he could see that most of the Fourth Division was also scattering, and Lord Onoki was already well into the atmosphere….he was probably going to try to stop the meteorite using his lightweight rock technique. The Chuunin made it on top of a different part of the very same cliff that Madara and Muu were standing atop of and from there jumped up to one of the tuber-shaped sandstone rocks that characterized the geology of this region. He, while preparing the hand-signs for Shunsin, looked up for a final time and saw that Lord Onoki had mostly stopped the motion of the meteorite.

_Tsuchikage-sama is amazing! I hope that his hands are ok. I'm not sure if he'll really be able to stop that though….let's get out of here. If he truly stops it, I'll come back to this battlefield later. I'm not sure what I can do here, but I need to back up my village and – _

The meteorite, obscuring most of the sky at this point, started moving again with a vengeance, sending Onoki flying like a discarded bowling pin off to the side.

_I WASTED TOO MUCH TIME. TSUCHIKAGE-SAMA FAILED. Shunsin – ACTIVATE._


	3. Armageddon

On a bright afternoon hundreds of miles away from the unmourned and un-noted death of a nameless Iwa Chuunin, who in the very few seconds he'd had, failed to cover enough distance in his shunshin to escape from the shockwave of the meteorite strike inflicted on the Fourth Division by a resurrected Uchiha Madara, Terumi Mei was sitting at her desk in the royal palace of the Fire Nation Capital, absently twirling her hair with her right hand in an empty, empty room. She was supposed to be signing off on a supplies acquisition – that and a mound of similarly menial but absolutely essential paperwork for the war effort.

Why was she twirling her extensive mane of hair? Because the famously beautiful kunoichi was testing for split ends. Because, _why the hell not? _

_I am so bored. Of the five Kage, why do I have to be the quartermaster…? Ao is at the headquarters busy co-ordinating the sensor-nin, Chojuro-kun is still outside – he has been since yesterday, that young fool; he needs some sleep - using Himamekarei to keep the Black Zetsu restrained while our interrogators work on him, and according to all of Ao and Inoichi's messages relayed from the field, Uzumaki Naruto has basically won the war all on his own. All that's left is the masked man who calls himself Madara…_

_There is no way that it's going to be this easy. Madara has, as far as we know, been preparing for this war for seventy years. He's likely to have more surprises aside from the statue that he wrecked the First Division with, and this army of Zetsu. Where did he even get those..? And supposedly he's wearing a different mask than the one we saw at the Gokage summit, and he now has _one _Rinnegan? Was he hiding it for this entire time? And what is he planning with the artifacts of the Sage that he stole from the First Division?_

_Enough of this. I'm sick of not being in the field. I understand why A-dono and Shikaku of Konoha agreed that it was best to have my men and I guard the Daimyo – not even Tsunade's clan is considered to be as noble as mine - but it's so boring. I was tired of being a princess by the time I was six years old…that's why I chose to be a kunoichi instead of going into the family shipping conglomerate or politics. And look at me! I still wound up becoming the thing I most despise in the world….a politician. I never wanted to be Mizukage! But by the time we defeated Yagura two years ago, there was literally no one else qualified to take the job. They were all dead or had gone traitor. Why did Zabuza-kun have to die….? He managed to defeat or evade Yagura's hunter-nin for over five years, before getting killed by Hatake Kakashi only a few months before Yagura's final defeat. He was one of Kiri's greatest loyalists, to the true ideal of Kirigakure and not the monster of a village it became under Yagura. Despite his beginnings as the "Demon of the Mist", by the end of his tenure, he was the only member of the Seven Swordsmen who wasn't dead, evil, or completely insane. The only decent human being from among them. He was supposed to rule alongside me….that's why we agreed on that night, eight years ago, that if our coup failed he would take the blame and flee the village, while I continued to work in the minor islands, rallying support from the survivors and refugees of the bloodline purges. He was the only man who was ever brave enough to call me beautiful to my own face….goddamnit. In time, I could have come to love him, if we'd only had a chance…_

Bitterly sighing in regret at the things that could and should have been, Mei looked up. Some pipsqueak grandson of the Fire Daimyo's had entered the room, accompanied by his Ninja Guardian, a particularly large example of Konoha's Akimichi clan…the young lord couldn't have been older than eight.

Mei asked brightly, beaming, "What can I do for you, young lord?" Mei had always had a soft spot for children, even if they were related to one of her nation's greatest enemies.

The child shifted nervously. It couldn't have been easy for such a young child to introduce himself to the leader of the Bloody Mist, even if she was a guest in his own home.

"C….can you make Naruto nii-chan stay here? I know he's really busy, and he's not really a part of the Ninja Army, but can you….?" The child looked up at Mei, who was still sitting down, arms crossed and hands folded under her chin, with wide and hopeful eyes.

Mei considered him, tilting her head in a questioning glance. Naruto hadn't been in the Fire Capital for _that_ long. He'd only arrived during the battle against the Black Zetsu yesterday afternoon. How did he know the first grandson of the Daimyo of the Fire Nation?

The child seemed to gain some confidence, after taking a gulp. "My friend Inari, from Wave, has been telling me all about Naruto nii-chan for months, ever since the Battle of Konoha. Naruto's so famous here in the Capital, and now that I'm able to meet him, he's even cooler than I thought he would be! He's so nice! And he showed me all kinds of cool moves, and told me all about his adventures. I know he's really busy, and you can't really order him around, but can you please ask him to stay for a while longer?"

Mei considered this, she really did. The circumstances of this meeting were now clear. The name Inari was known to her…the only grandson and male heir of Tazuna, the carpenter and self-trained engineer who, with Hatake's and Naruto's help, had freed the Wave Country from Gato almost four years ago.

_Oh, Zabuza-kun…._

The prior Daimyo of Wave had been completely complicit in Gato's extraction of all movable value from the country, and after the rogue capitalist's death at Zabuza's hands, the people of Wave had unceremoniously thrown the rotten, self-serving bastard and his supporting staff out of the country with only the clothes on their back. Even to this day, the only foreign nations that officially recognized Wave's new leadership were Konoha and Kiri, the former diplomatic recognition taking place some months after the fact due to personal pressure from the Sandaime Hokage and the merchant class of the Fire Capital who found access to Wave's Great Naruto Bridge to be a much more profitable relationship than aiding a fallen Daimyo who had, in any case, stolen much money from them, with the latter diplomatic recognition taking place only once Mei took charge. Wave was still officially without a Daimyo, but was under pressure to appoint either Tazuna or his daughter Tsunami as the next one – the lesson being that no Elemental Nation, no matter how minor, could be permitted to entirely forgo the Daimyo system, which had been self-perpetuating for countless centuries. Daimyo were, as a general rule, deathly allergic to popular uprisings and would go to incredible expense to suppress all of them, anywhere in the world, supporting even their own worst enemies in the process so long as it meant that they weren't overthrown and killed by mere rabble _peasantry._ It was an "I scratch your back, you scratch my back" status quo that had persisted for centuries and quickly defeated all attempts at imposing a new governing order, with the exception of Uzushiogakure's democracy – a powerful reason for the alliance of Wind, Kumo, and Iwa, who blasted Uzu from the face of the earth by unleashing several Jinchuuriki in a surprise attack – no attack of normal shinobi would have been sufficient to overcome the small nation's fuinjutsu defenses, whatever their numbers. Wave Daimyo's problem was that he had been such a petty, short-sighted bastard that he'd managed to alienate his foreign allies – if he hadn't managed that, he would probably _still _be in charge, despite his crimes against his own people.

_It seems as though the principal heirs of Fire and Wave countries have been getting to know one another…makes sense. Wave is now by far the quickest growing economy of the oceanic Elemental Nations. Access to its bridge and superior ports has quickly become essential for any merchants importing goods into the Fire Capital – the Piraeus has been at capacity for generations and its ports cannot be physically expanded any more than they already have been, acting as a bottleneck on the Capital's growth. The merchant advisors of the Fire Daimyo must be wanting to solidify the relationship between the two countries by making the two heirs friends with one another. Clever of them. Disgustingly manipulative, politicking and playing with the emotions of mere children, but it looks like some good has come out of this regardless. _

Her considering finished, Mei brightly smiled at the child and asked "what is your name, young lord?"

The child, who had been starting to fidget under Mei's inquisitive stare – she had taken her time in answering, responded, "Raiden, pretty lady. My name is Raiden."

Mei laughed. "It's good to see that you know how to compliment a lady at your young age, young lord! It's interesting that the Daimyo of the Fire Nation chose that of all names for you. To answer your question, I can't really order Uzumaki Naruto to stay. He's outside of the Shinobi Alliance's command structure – he never officially received a headband of the Alliance, and no one is brave enough to tell someone as powerful as him to start following orders – even if he's still officially a genin."

_A genin still? How ridiculous…._

Mei continued. "Also, that's not really Naruto. It's a Shadow Clone of his." Seeing the black haired and blue eyed child's curious and slightly disturbed look, she clarified, "Oh, it's Naruto's personality all right. If you meet the real Naruto, he will know and remember everything about his visit to the Capital, including you. The Shadow Clone technique is a powerful forbidden jutsu that allows the user to imbue a chakra construct of themselves with a…echo of their soul, is the best way to describe it. Unlike every other kind of clone technique we know of, it allows to user to duplicate their very personality, putting it into a new, but weaker and temporary body, while keeping any memories of their clone's experiences after it dies. As you've already realized," she said, seeing the child's astonished look "it's an incredibly powerful technique. A frequent user like Naruto can't really be said to be a single person….a legion of one person, perhaps. Because the Naruto who is here is a clone, I have to admit, it would feel a little strange to give a clone orders – no matter how much like the real Naruto he is."

The child, who had been growing more and more astonished as he listened, eagerly asked "How can a jutsu so powerful exist?! It sounds like you could use it to do anything…have your clone read books, go to meetings instead of you, do your chores…why is Naruto nii-chan the only person I've ever heard of using it?"

Mei liked this child's curiosity. Hopefully he would grow up to be less of a bastard than his father. With Naruto's influence, he probably would. "Naruto, because of the demon he has within him, can use the jutsu in unique ways. For most genin and chuunin shinobi, using the technique to create even one clone would kill them outright, and even powerful jounin like me can only use the technique a few times, because every use splits half of our chakra. We can get some of the chakra back if the clone dies, but the loss in transmission is very large and increases with distance. Because Naruto has so much chakra though, he only needs to put in a relatively small amount of his chakra before the clone is filled to the brim – the technique doesn't have the capacity to split his chakra in half before it overloads – and because his chakra is so powerful, he doesn't lose much if any chakra due to the transmission loss. You can compare it a little to how a high voltage current will lose much less electricity due to heat radiation than a low voltage current, even if the wattage is the same…." Mei trailed off, seeing the child's glazing eyes. "I see this is going a little over your head." Mei smiled. "Don't worry about it. You just need to know that, as far as you need to be concerned, that's the real Naruto. But the only one who can ask him to stay is you – but please don't distract him too much. He's meditating in the courtyard to gather chakra for the real Naruto hundreds of miles away, and he shouldn't be distracted too much while he's doing that. Bring him candy or ramen – something with lots of calories. I'm sure he'll appreciate it."

The child answered her smile with his own. "Thanks, pretty lady! I'll go to Naruto nii-chan, but I won't disturb him too much." Raiden looked up to his guard "Sorifu-chan, let's go!"

Mei inwardly laughed, her amusement clear in her eyes. The young lord was comfortable enough with his six foot eight, six-hundred-pound guard to call him _chan._ How amusing.

As the two left the immense office, Raiden looked back at Mei "Thanks, pretty lady! I like you. Come visit again sometime after this war ends!"

Mei beamed at the child. "That I will, Raiden-chan. Hopefully someday."

As the door closed, with the Akimichi guard Sorifu still looking sheepish at how the young lord called him _chan_ in front of the Mizukage herself, Mei inwardly sighed happily. Children unspoiled by war truly were the hope of the future. If there was a hope of a lasting peace in the Elemental Nations that didn't involve Madara's arrogant and skin-crawlingly disturbing methods, it was in children like Raiden – the thing in the Elemental Nations most worth protecting. Mei knew that the War of the Bloody Mist had ended too shortly ago for a generation of children like Raiden to really begin emerging, but given the outpouring of babies in the misty village after their long nightmare had finally ended, she knew that that time would come soon. It was for them that she would remain Mizukage for the foreseeable future.

_Hopefully I can find a husband myself at some point...and on the subject of Naruto…._

_After we stopped the Black Zetsu from taking the Daimyo hostage yesterday, the Naruto clone used his sage techniques to feel out for more enemies…and he couldn't sense any for hundreds of miles. The clone is now gathering chakra for the real Naruto…or trying to, anyway, when Raiden-chan and the Daimyo aren't pestering it with questions. Naruto needs more of an education on how to deal with nobles, at least enough to tell them as politely as possible to go away. You'd think that after what he pulled off in the former Snow Country, Tsunade would arrange for her all but official successor some training in feudal etiquette…especially given that the country's Daimyo, the former actress __Koyuki Kazahana, is according to my spy preparing to court him once he turns 18. Lucky kid. Spring Country is one of the wealthiest of the elemental nations for its reserves of natural resources and oil. The country could earn an even greater fortune if they started selling their chakra armor…but they are keeping that technology locked up tight for their own use. My spy still hasn't gotten any of the blueprints. If anything though, Koyuki would be marrying _up. _If we can trust what we're seeing in these reports coming from the field, Naruto is probably the most powerful man in the world except for Madara – and at the age of sixteen, even if he's nearly seventeen! If I was younger myself…._

Shaking her resplendent mane of hair, Mei of the ancient and powerful Terumi clan finally stood up from her desk overlooking the grounds of the palace of the Fire Nation's daimyo, built into the side of an extinct volcano overlooking the Capital. After standing, Mei turned around and faced the forty foot wide window taking up an entire wall of this office – the facility typically used by the Hokage when visiting the Fire Capital.

_It's nice to be able to see the entire city from here…but I can see why a man as noble as the Sandaime Hokage tried not to visit the Capital too often, no matter how nice this office is._

The office wasn't to her taste, decked out in mahogany and furs from the royal forests raised by Senju Hashirama himself for the Fire Daimyo's personal use. The austere architecture of her home, typically relying on water-cut and polished volcanic rock like obsidian and granite, was much more to her tastes.

If Mei could appreciate nothing else about her inglorious posting in this war effort, she could certainly appreciate her first time ever visiting the Capital – the greatest port city in the elemental nations, prospering from its great and ancient hub of trade, the Piraeus. The Fire Capital was one of the oldest cities in the elemental nations, and had become hugely wealthy from its business-friendly tax policies and benevolent policy towards corporate corruption and espionage. The business community was dominated by law, banking, shipping interests, real estate, and other similarly parasitic sectors. Entrepreneurs could never survive in a city where the rule of law was written by and for wealthy monopolists. As a matter of necessity, the Terumi clan, overseeing the world's most powerful shipping company, had a major branch office in this city. Mei's older brother, heir to the clan itself, was currently in charge of this branch office and had been for the past decade. Competent leadership of this, the most important regional headquarters for the Terumi shipping conglomerate aside from the true headquarters, which had recently been moved back to Kirigakure itself after Yagura's death, had for centuries been the test to determine the clan's future leader – though the clan was roughly split between shinobi and civilians, only the civilians could take charge due to the work load of handling the capitalist enterprise. Though her brother possessed one of her clan's Kekkai Genkai, and could to some extent manipulate it and his chakra, he was at the end of the day a civilian – a very politically powerful one who was somewhat capable of defending himself, and heir to one of the greatest clans in the history of the Elemental Nations – but still a civilian.

_I don't get to see him often enough…and except if he chooses to drop by, I don't think that I'll get the chance to see him until after Madara is defeated. I'm stuck in this palace until the war ends, or if something so exceptional comes up that I'm personally called to the front lines….and I'm not sure I want that. I'm the greatest kunoichi of my generation, but I'm not eager to fight someone who was once so powerful that the very geography would alter in his wake. He called himself a shell of his former self at the Gokage summit, but he controls seven of the nine bijuu now – that surely adequately makes up for his loss of personal power._

It was to this palace, overlooking the wealthiest and best-protected city in the world, that the daimyo of the Five Great Nations and the daimyo of the lesser vassal nations aiding in the war effort had been recalled by the Shinobi Alliance for their own protection. And even with Mei and her dozens of shinobi, they'd still nearly failed in their task. They wouldn't have been able to detect the Black Zetsu at all were it not for Naruto's timely arrival. Apparently this Naruto clone, one of dozens currently active in the war, had only showed up because it could _feel _the Black Zetsu from hundreds of miles away, and came in pursuit of him.

The shinobi at the Fire National Capital had been speculating how this could be possible ever since the Zetsu had been dealt with and captured. Sensory abilities of this caliber were many orders of magnitude beyond those of even the greatest tracking-nin sensors to have ever lived. The leader of the Guardians of Fire, a senior member of the Hyuuga Clan's main branch who had hadn't been a Konoha ninja for decades, had some experience dealing with Jiraiya, the only other fully realized sage of recent decades in the Elemental Nations. He told Mei, her shinobi, and the other Guardians at the general meeting after Zetsu had been captured that not even Jiraiya would have been capable of such extreme long-distance sensing. The Naruto clone admitted at the general assembly that it was only possible because he wasn't sensing chakra so much as he was emotion and intent, a legacy of the Nine Tailed Fox. The Hyuuga remarked that this ability must have been how the Fox, in past ages, had been able to find and hunt human settlements with such accuracy.

Starting several centuries after the death of the Sage of Six Paths, the Fox – which had formerly been unknown to the Elemental Nations – had emerged from the Unknown Territories on the warpath for unknown reasons, and slaughtered anyone and everything it encountered, including – especially including - Jinchuuriki. The methods then existing for sealing the other Bijuu simply could not work on a being of the Fox's power, meaning that there was simply no way to restrain or even slow down the great beast. The Fox, according to the history books, had singlehandedly suppressed human development for centuries before, one day, it disappeared as abruptly as it had first come, some three hundred years ago – before reappearing with Uchiha Madara seventy years ago on his one-manned invasion of the Elemental Nations, and subsequently disappearing until sixteen years ago for a final encore with the Yellow Flash, who, Konoha said, had killed the beast once and for all in a suicide fuinjutsu that cut off the Fox's chakra from the natural energy of the world, preventing it from reforming. As events of the past few months had made clear, however, the Fox had never really died – Konoha was just awfully skilled at keeping the identities of its presumably multiple Junchuuriki secret. Were it not for Pain's attack on Konoha, the world may have never found out about this secret – which explained once and for all why Hashirama was content to _give_ the Hidden Villages eight of the nine bijuu during his attempts to bring about peace in the Elemental Nations – he'd been keeping the greatest of the Bijuu, said to be more powerful than all of the others combined, for himself. How fitting.

It was only after the Shinobi Alliance had been formed and the Hidden Villages began to share formerly classified information with one another that Mei found out how woefully inadequate Kirigakure's intelligence services had become under Yagura's reign. Apparently, _every_ Hidden Village aside from Kiri had known for years that Naruto was the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki – his burden was apparently nearly public knowledge in Konoha and had been ever since Naruto had been born, due to the very public nature of the Fox's defeat and sealing. Yagura's network of informants and spies had, during the Bloodline Civil War, been the terror of the loosely united nation of islands, but were apparently incompetent at learning about the Village's actual enemies. Brother had been known to betray brother, often, destroying countless clans and families throughout the islands. And now there was so little to show for all of the suffering, all of the death. Just broken families in a war-weary land. Mei had promised at her coronation speech that the Bloody Mist was no more, that the village would forever more govern itself with a decency and professionalism that would have been considered anathema to most of the prior Mizukage – but not to Yagura, if he hadn't gone insane. She intended to do everything in her power, and sacrifice everything – including her life if need be – to lay Kiri's demons to rest and bring about a more decent future for her village.

Considering this, Mei frowned. The memories of the history that had led to her becoming Mizukage weren't pleasant, but she still hadn't had the time to really consider the implications of Yagura's descent into insanity, which she now knew beyond all doubt could be pinned squarely on the masked man, "Madara Uchiha." At their final confrontation with the insane Mizukage and his loyalist forces of war criminals and genociders on the outskirts of Kirigakura, Ao was able to use his stolen Byakugan – secretly obtained shortly after Yagura's ascent, at immense cost, from a Main Branch Hyuuga who'd gone rogue – and confirmed that Yagura was in the thrall of an immensely powerful Uchiha genjutsu.

Yagura, grandson of the Shodaime Mizukage, had been a child prodigy of unheard-of proportions, and the only successful Jinchuuriki of the Sanbi – or so it had seemed at first. Yagura was descended from the arranged marriage between the Shodaime and a woman of Uzushiogakure's governing clan, the Uzumaki. Kirigakure had allied with the Uzumaki, ancient friends and strongest vassal-clan of the Senju, in order to better control the shipping and trade routes connecting the Eastern elemental nations and the Unknown Territories beyond, and secretly, in order to secure the Uzumaki's aid in controlling their Jinchuuriki. Yagura and Utakata were shortly after birth secretly affixed with powerful fuinjutsu of the Uzumaki, and both subsequently gained a measure of control over their Bijuu that was completely unheard of in the history of demon-sealing – though Yagura's control over his demon was far greater, due to the much weaker chakra potential and personality of the Sanbi. In its rampages, the six-tails had been, on occasion, known to speak to the ninja of Kiri, generally expressing its hatred for the ninja who enslaved it - but the Sanbi _never_ spoke, and had never displayed any particular cunning in battle beyond that of a normal turtle - which was why, after the Sanbi was released when Yagura died in the final battle, Mei was content to allow the bijuu to take over an inland lake on one of the minor islands of Kiri - so long as no one bothered it, it would wallow there like any other turtle. In the hectic times immediately following her ascension to Mizukage, she in no way could spare the time or forces to control or re-seal the rogue demon. She'd actually been thankful on that day a few months ago when the demon had inexplicably disappeared, but once she learned from Konoha that Akatsuki had stolen it, the implications had become much more sinister. Getting back to Yagura...

In defending the village as a young genin from rampaging cetacean summoning tribes, Yagura had gained the acknowledgement and respect of a village that had previously despised him for his burden. After he personally killed the Kumo ninja who had tried to abduct from the village scores of bloodline-carrying children, Mei had, as the Jounin shinobi representative as Kiri's bloodline clans at the age of sixteen, sponsored Yagura to undergo one of Mist's most honored traditions – single combat against the Mizukage – to determine his worthiness as a potential successor to the aging man, who'd taken over decades beforehand after the Hozuki Nidaime Mizukage had died in single combat defending himself against the Skulking Ghost, who'd infiltrated the village in order to assassinate him. Although Yagura had lost to the Sandaime, the honor and graciousness displayed by both men at Kiri's arena had whipped up Kiri's patriotism and resulted in a standing ovation lasting for nearly half an hour – a fantastic conclusion to one of the most intense battles seen for years in Kiri. This act solidified Yagura's status as the next Mizukage, despite his young age.

_Such potential, wasted. I liked Yagura. I respected him, despite his being even younger than me. He was supposed to lead Kiri to a new and brighter future, yet mere days after his ascent, he starts behaving more and more erratic, and only occasionally slipped out of whatever had been controlling him when confronted by an old friend or in the midst of battle._

_We thought at first that Konoha was somehow responsible…none of the other nations had genjutsu users capable of such long-term manipulations. Such a thing wouldn't have beyond Uchiha Itachi's prowess, but Yagura's insanity started before he defected from Konoha. It wouldn't have made sense for him to continue sabotaging Kiri even after he left Konoha…all that we few conspirators knew at the time was that only an Uchiha could have been capable of so manipulating someone without his even realizing it….Uchiha Shisui was legendary for exactly this kind of manipulation, but he told me personally that he wasn't responsible…and I believed him. He said that although there were Uchiha capable of whatever was happening to Yagura, none of them in the village were responsible – and there were no known Uchiha missing-nin. We only know for certain that he didn't go insane due to influence from his bijuu – from what we could see, it was just as much a thrall as he was through that bloody, bloody time. Over a decade of genocide…cleaning that history up will be my legacy._

It was only towards the end of Yagura's reign, after his descent into insanity had become complete, with or without the genjutsu, that Mei and her increasingly strong conspirators and rebels began to understand the purpose of the bloodline purges. It didn't even remotely make sense why Yagura, who had always been a friend and hero to Kiri's clans, would so turn against them. Due to a number of sick, sick clans like the Kaguya, the people of the island nations had never quite trusted Kekkai Genkai holders, but their contributions to the history and culture of Kirigakura and the surrounding island nations was beyond question. For example, the Terumi clan had played the central role in unifying the island nations into the loose confederacy that eventually became Kirigakure, and various bloodlines had saved the nations from foreign invasions of man and creature on countless occasions.

_It was all a mask, a sham. All of the genocide was meant to cover up the true objective of the masked man. Kiri's clans were the greatest scholars in the world, since the islands had for countless centuries served as a refuge from the wars on the mainland. Yagura cut off Kiri's diplomatic relations and foreign trade not only to cut down on foreign interference, but primarily to keep the scholars from leaving – we had formerly had dozens of clans, some with kekkai genkai, but many without, whose primary task was the recording of history and the passing of knowledge. That's why our nation more so than any other was known for being a repository of knowledge – our libraries were world famous, our manufacturing industries without peer, and our shinobi better educated and more deadly than those of any other nation, despite our smaller numbers. "Madara" used the cover of his genocides to ransack the secret stores of knowledge of these clans, no doubt searching for information on the Sage of Six Paths. Some of our scholarly clans – the Hozuki, for example – were said to possess scrolls written in the Sage's own hand, though not even the Mizukage or the Daimyo were ever permitted to inspect such treasures! We gave our clans a significant degree of autonomy...too much, in retrospect. It was that autonomy that led us to willingly alienate ourselves from the common citizen, which is how they were so easily deceived into murdering us. _

_Madara used us…he turned us against ourselves, consuming our best and brightest, in order to find whatever the missing links were in his plan to create a planet-wide genjutsu – that surely has to be a technique either developed by the Sage or derived from his writings. I see it all now….Yagura's final words make sense now. Should I tell my ninja though? Their hatred would give them power in this war, but, I don't want to see my ninja, yet again, throwing their lives away by the hundreds to gain revenge on one insane man…..even if Madara is the man who all but destroyed Kiri….our true Yondaime Mizukage…_

…_poor Yagura._

Mei, still staring out of the window, had had a steadily darkening expression on her face as she for the first time really considered the implications of Madara's guilt in the Civil Wars of the Bloody Mist. If an observer had been nearby, they would have been growing steadily more alarmed at the cloud of killing intent that Mei was releasing. Madara's role had been pieced together piecemeal from Yagura's nearly incoherent final words and the meager results of the interrogation of Kisame – the Konoha interrogator Aoba had gotten little out of Kisame, aside from a vision of a meeting of Kisame and the masked man in Kirigakure, who in their meeting called himself Madara and confirmed his control over Yagura. Her top jounin, privileged to the information that had come out of that interrogation, had been up in arms – but none save her had yet realized the true purpose of the genocides.

Mei sighed bitterly, still staring out of the massive window overlooking the Fire Capital from the upper slopes of the royal stratovolcano. The beauty of this place was almost poetic in the rot that it concealed. Mei didn't doubt that the Kyuubi, if it wasn't sealed in Uzumaki Naruto, would have taken especial pleasure in purging this city in a holocaust of demon-fire.

_It's sick that this pampered, corrupt capital can live so freely while the ninja and samurai of the joint army are dying by the tens of thousands…do these bankers and parasites even know that Madara intends to end the world as we know it? Do they even care? Would they care at all about the suffering that Kiri has gone through….? So many of them were complicit in Yagura's slaughter, helping themselves to the assets of Kiri's most ancient clans and greatest scholars…_

_My clan barely survived that war. So much of my family died. Even my clan's company, our second birthright along with our kekkai genkai, barely survived - especially after Gato's betrayal of us – we who invested in his company when it was only getting off of the ground. He wasn't such a bastard back then, merely unusually ambitious. After he betrayed us, I heard that he and the Fire Daimyo's advisors got along fabulously…the reason why an island nation so close to the Capital could be so oppressed for so long. When Naruto saved that island nation, he did more good for Wave, and for Kiri, than he could have possibly known…._

Kiri back then, before Yagura had gone insane, had been filled with such _hope._ The Sandaime, a friend of the similarly numbered Hokage, had been taking full advantage of the peace and disarmament agreements following the Second Shinobi World War and had been making fantastic progress in destroying Kiri's bloody legacy as a village of murderers and thugs. Kiri had little interest in ever getting involved in the World Wars – it was difficult enough to govern its own uniquely geographically and culturally fragmented territory even in times of peace, even without considering the frequent natural disasters and attacks by creatures from the Unknown Territories. Adding war on top of those pressures had nearly split apart the nation several times, both before and after the Founding. The Sandaime's accomplishments, as Kiri's first Kage who was a decent human being, were legion. The evil Academy tradition of killing a classmate in single combat – something Mei herself had gone through – had been phased out, brutal clans like the Kaguya cast out from the main island of Kirigakure, and even the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist were being encouraged to only accept as apprentices more humane and honorable shinobi – Kiri had grown sick of the elite institution after Zabuza murdered an entire graduating class and was _still _accepted as an apprentice. Granted, in one of Kiri's lesser-sung miracles, Zabuza had still managed to become a decent person, largely due to his fantastic master in the Seven Swordsman, but his demonic reputation earned from killing a hundred children in cold blood – while he himself was still a child – had never really gone away.

In the aftermath of the Civil War of the Bloody Mist, one of the only questions anyone cared about was _why? _What was the point of all of this bloodshed? Without the knowledge that had been recently obtained about "Madara," Mei figured that that question would have never been answered.

_Enough of considering our past. I'm going to drive myself insane in hate if I keep going down this rabbit hole. So many vile acts were committed. How many were done under Madara's will, how many were the product of whatever concealed hate Yagura had had in him, and how many were the product of mere pointless, incoherent insanity? I'm done with this. I'll think about this some more after the war if ever._

And then the door to the Capital Office of the Hokage was being frantically pounded on.

_Good timing!_

"Come in."

One of her Kiri Jounin, a man who had proven his loyalty beyond all doubt as a survivor of one of the scholar clans – Mei had personally saved him from Yagura's genociders - spilled into the room, a panicked expression on his face.

"Mizukage-sama, it's a disaster! The Fourth Division has been almost completely wiped out and –"

The office started to quake. Mei and her Jounin subordinate kept their footing by applying chakra to their feet, but the room's mahogany paneling began obliterating itself in a symphony of cracks. A full thirty seconds later, the quaking stopped, and Mei finally looked outside through a now window-less wall. Mei could see that many buildings, even skyscrapers, in the Capital had collapsed – no doubt due to endemic evasion of construction codes. She was fortunate that no one would dare to go cheap on constructing the earthquake-resistant foundations of the Daimyo's personal residence, but it looked like, for hundreds of thousands of people in the Capital, their misfortune and tolerance of business corruption had brought their lives to an end.

Recovering, Mei brought herself to her full height and brushed the dust and debris from her battle-dress. Her jounin did the same, and she ordered "continue with the report. Afterwards, take every shinobi from downstairs who can be spared and put them to disaster relief in the city. We go through earthquakes all the time in Kiri and we've got the experience to –"

Her Jounin, incredibly, had the balls to interrupt her when she was in her no-screwing-around Mizukage mode.

"Mizukage-sama, forgive me for interrupting, but this was no natural earthquake. As soon as the Yamanaka downstairs relayed what happened to the Fourth Division, he ordered us to take cover and prepare for the shockwave. We had about thirty seconds of advance warning – that's when I started running up here." Mei, who had been becoming steadily more alarmed, told her jounin to continue.

"What in the world is going on out there?"

"It's Uchiha Madara, Mizukage-sama. The real one, the red warrior of legend. He was brought back with Edo Tensei and battled the Fourth Division for a time before unleashing, if I can trust what the Yamanaka told me, an asteroid on the army – a hunk of metal several kilometers across. Out of nearly twenty thousand ninja, it sounds like there are only a few hundred survivors – people with bloodline limits or powerful ninjutsu that served as absolute defenses, and a few ninja who could make themselves temporarily ethereal. It sounds like not a single person escaped using shunshin. It's an absolute disaster…."

Mei, looking at her Jounin's now truly fearful expression, told her jounin to go on once more.

"Madara has the Rinnegan – the same eyes as the man of Akatsuki who destroyed Konoha all on his own a few months ago. And, when I trailed off just now….that was the Yamanaka telling me telepathically that Madara can also use the First Hokage's Wood Release….it sounds like the Naruto clone at the battlefield managed to stop that particular attack. Yeah, the Yamanaka just told me now that Shikaku, Konoha's top jounin commander, has taken over operations at headquarters. The Hokage and Raikage are both being teleported to the front lines to face Madara, and they want you to come along. A team from Konoha has the ability to use a bastardized version of the Yellow Flash's teleportation technique and they're outside right now preparing the jutsu. The battlefield is almost eight hundred miles away, but this can bring you there in an instant."

"What of the masked Madara….the one we now know is a fake?"

"The Yamanaka told us that Uzumaki Naruto – the real one – and Kirabi of Cloud are about to intercept him, a few hundred miles south of the Mountain's Graveyard. This is almost four hundred miles away from where the Fourth Division got wiped out in south-eastern Stone Country. The masked Madara has apparently resurrected six of the Jinchuuriki, and they're fighting alongside him….this includes Yagura and Utakata, Mizukage-sama."

Mei recoiled. "God _damn _Kabuto. Why are so many powerful enemies coming from Konoha?! Kabuto was a merely former Konoha medic-nin and apprentice of Orochimaru, and now he's resurrected the last Seven Swordsmen – including Zabuza – two of our former Mizukage, Madara, our Jinchuuriki….is there any moral boundary he won't spit on?"

She continued, seeing her Jounin's helpless look. "Yes, I'm going to report to the field. It's about time. If anyone can stop Madara, it would be the five Kage – and I'll just assume that Gaara and Onoki are both still alive?"

Seeing her Jounin's affirmative nod, Mei continued again "Let's get downstairs and outside. Have Chojuro-kun take over my paperwork after getting some sleep. He could use the practice, since he wants to be Mizukage so badly. Like I said, everyone else who can be spared should be put on disaster relief."

As they left the room and went down the wide, sweeping stairs – now heavily damaged – her Jounin responded, "We anticipated that saving the people of the Fire Capital would be one of your first orders. Everyone who can be spared is already out there."

In response to this, as they stood before the exit leading to the primary external courtyard of the Daimyo's palace, Mei gave her Jounin a small smile. "What would I do without you Kiri ninja….you're so loyal to me that you can anticipate my wishes before even me."

"That's because you're our Mizukage, the woman who saved us from Yagura's darkness. We'll follow you to the ends of the earth, whether or not you ask it."

Mei nodded. Even after having heard similar words hundreds of times before, such displays of loyalty always deeply affected her.

"I understand. Let's go outside – let's end this war."


End file.
